


Ink Me to this Promised Land

by Innocentfighter



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Implied Sexual Content, Internalized Homophobia, Introspection, M/M, Minor Character Death, Not dialogue heavy, Period-Typical Homophobia, Platonic Soulmates, Pre-Canon, Romantic Soulmates, Sam is a Sweetheart, Slurs, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, can be read either way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 06:00:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16826584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Innocentfighter/pseuds/Innocentfighter
Summary: Josh hides the name on his wrist. Sam never shied away from his. Good thing they’re made for each other.





	Ink Me to this Promised Land

**Author's Note:**

> Listen. I don't even know. I had an idea and I had to write it. So. Here we are.  
> Day 3.

Josh’s soulmark had appeared when he was two or three, and while he doesn’t remember getting it, he remembers when his mother first started talking about it, he had been five. She had fawned over it, claiming that his soulmate would become some great man, claiming that because she had never seen a mark quite like Josh’s. In truth, he hadn’t seen one like his either, most of the kids in his preschool already had theirs. His was by far the one that everyone wanted.

The name wrapped around his wrist, and originally it looked more like a design than a name, letters looped and ran together in perfect strokes, each repeating letter was identical. His mark started out in a baby blue that reminded him of the morning sky before it darkened by the end of the name to a dark blue. Everyone had always said that they hadn’t seen such a dynamic name.

Even Joanie, whose own mark had been on her at birth was jealous and she could read hers.

Josh was five when his mom and dad got into their first argument about the name. He didn’t understand why his father was so angry nor did he understand why after that conversation he was forced to wear a silver band specially made to cover his name. There were a couple of other kids in his class that had the same jewelry on, so he only complained a little. At school though, when everyone would show off their mark, he would slip the bracelet off and follow the curves of the letters he couldn’t read yet.

When Josh was seven, his world got turned upside down three times. The first was in his second-grade classroom, the teacher had told them that they were going to start learning cursive. Excitement had bubbled in Josh, he would finally be able to learn the name of his Soulmate. The entire way home that day he babbled excitedly to his mom about how he was going to learn cursive the best and be able to read it first. His mom had smiled, happy at first and then it grew into this sad version.

She told him not to mention it to his dad. Josh hadn’t, because he had learned last year that trying to talk about his Soulmate to dad, was a bad idea. It just made dad angry.

Within the week, Josh was already working his way through LMNOP on the alphabet. His teacher was very impressed by how well he was reading the words, but not so much his penmanship. Josh had taken the criticism with ease. He didn’t need to _write_ it. After he finished with this lesson, he would take out a scrap piece of paper and look through the learned letters to the tracing he had made of his mark. There were more letters today, but there weren’t enough to fill in the blanks completely.

Z had become his favorite letter because that meant he had learned how to write all the letters in cursive. At some point, he decided that he would wait until he had the rest of the alphabet completed before he finished out his name. Today was that day.

Slowly, in clumsy handwriting, he compared the letters to his mark.

_Samuel Seaborn_

Josh blinked had frowned because that was a boys name and he was supposed to have a girl’s name. Every other boy had a girl’s name and all of the girl’s had a boy name. Except he didn’t know about the kids who always wore a silver bracelet. Maybe that’s why his dad had made him wear on? To let people know that he had a boy’s name?

Later that night he asked his mom to confirm that he had read the letters right. He had, and his mom had cried about it for some reason. She promised him that it would be alright and that she still loved him. Josh decided that he would keep wearing the bracelet, a lot of the older kids were wearing them too.

The second time that his life got rearranged that year was the house fire. He still didn’t remember it completely, only flashes, but he remembered that his mom had held him tight and his father had placed a hand on her shoulder.

It was strange and sad that when they moved into their new house he didn’t have to fight anyone over which room he got. His mom seemed to just wander through the house, sometimes she would cry other times she didn’t have any emotions on her face. Dad was the same way, only he’d stare blankly at the silver bracelet on his wrist.

At some point, he switched it to one that had Joanie engraved on it from a small thrift store, before he went back to the plain band, too sad to look at her name anymore. Josh ran his hand over his Soulmark when things got too bad. He wondered what kind of life Samuel (or would it be Sam?) was having.

The third thing that topped off the year, was when he was at the store with his parents. There was a boy, a couple of years older than him, probably Joanie’s age if he let himself think too hard about it. He didn’t get close enough to confirm, but the boy’s wrist was inked in a pale gray. At his young age, he only knew that gray meant something bad happened to their soulmate.

He was drawn to the boy in a way that he can’t explain, and that’s what scared him. Somehow, deep in his bones, Josh knew that this boy was the person that Joanie was meant to fall in love with. Mom had called him then, told him it wasn’t polite to stare, he thought it wasn’t fair that the boy would ever get to know who his beloved was.

By the time Josh was twelve he was glad that his father had been so adamant about him wearing the bracelet. The wounds of Joanie’s death had healed and it seemed like the other kids were finally getting past that weird mood they had all gone through. Still, he knew that the moment the remembered or found out that the name on his wrist was Samuel and not just Sam (which he told his best friend just to get them away from the topic). He’d seen what the other boys had done to one of their classmates that had a boy on his wrist.

Since that day, Josh didn’t even remove the bracelet. He wished desperately that he could remove it and run his hands on the perfect curves of Samuel’s letters. At some point, it had been less about him feeling like he wasn’t alone and more of a comfort during any point in the day. He couldn’t let himself have that fantasy. In the end, he got through middle school with his dignity intact and no one the wiser to the true name under the bracelet.

Finally, when he was eighteen and ready to start his life, Josh could’ve gotten down on his knees and thanked his father for the foresight to keep his name covered from a young age. Barely anyone knew that it wasn’t ‘Sam’ under the bracelet now. His mom had stopped arguing with him about the fact that he should be proud of his Soulmate. He responded that he didn’t even know the person yet.

She’d actually looked her age then, red-brown hair streaked with gray and shallow wrinkles on the corner of her eyes, “Joshua, remember, this is the person that is supposed to help you be better. Your other half. Regardless of who they turn out to be, so long as they treat you how you should be treated, you should be proud of them.”

He’d scoffed, and she continued, “I have a feeling about them. I always have. Maybe they’ll turn out to be some wonderful politician.”

Part of him wondered if that could work, if they lived together they would be running for the same seats unless one ran for state and the other for federal, or different parts of the federal government. Josh shook his head, he was thinking about making a life with Sam when he had hadn’t met the man yet.

Another smaller traitorous part of him wondered if the boy with the sky colored soul could be the real deal. Josh wouldn’t mind working for a man like that.

College let him explore more about who he was, and what he wanted to be. The second part of that he had known since he was fourteen and watched the candidate that he handed out the flyer for win. Who he was, however, was still up in the air. He wanted to take his years in college and explore himself, figure out where he wanted his Soulmate to stand, but every time he thought about going home with a boy, he stopped himself. _What ifs_ filled his head. _What if it comes back later in my career? What if someone finds out and uses it against me? What if I regret it? What if I’m not actually attracted to them in that way? What if-_

It took a copious amount of alcohol but finally, in junior year, he got to his experimenting. The man that he slept with was two years through a law degree. Honestly, the sex had been subpar, only because they had both been too drunk to remember how sex worked. He walked away with a twenty-minute make-out session that had the other person fall asleep on him

Originally, he had been interested. It was something. Another fact that he could use to present to his Soulmate.

The other disappointing factor was that most Soulmates meet in college, and there hadn’t been a student one that he bumped into named Samuel Seaborn. Josh was beginning to think this was a cosmic curse. He gets a name of a man that doesn’t exist. If anyone found out he could kiss his career goodbye.

Josh had withdrawn from socializing after that, realizing that if he wanted to get where he wanted to go, he’d have to buckle down and study. Samuel Seaborn obviously wasn’t on campus. The rest of undergraduate went by without him sleeping with another guy, and rarely did he take the time to take a girl home.

When he did go out with friends he tried to ignore the handprints that had started to show up as everyone paired off. That was the main part that he wasn’t looking forward to. When someone saw that his Soulmate had touched him, there would be no denying it was a man’s hand. Unless of course, Samuel had a women-like hand, which Josh didn’t discount. He knew the handwriting resembled a girl’s.

The turning point had been the summer he decided to intern at an incumbent Democrat's campaign office. Before he committed to Yale for law, he wanted to know if this was truly what he wanted to do. He knew the answer, but it was the compromise that he made with his parents for them to help him through his last three years.

Josh, all of twenty-two years had thought that he would be the youngest in the office, but he knew that he was good at his job. So, any shit he would take wouldn’t matter because he would prove them all wrong. It sounded like a plan, it got blown to hell within the first several minutes of stepping into the office.

It had been chaos like he expected, but he didn’t expect what actually happened. A young kid, younger than him, tripped over something (to this day Josh attests that it was nothing). Josh barely had time to grab the nearest arm, and in response, the kid steadied himself by placing a hand on Josh’s chest. Seconds ticked by before he felt the sear that he heard attributed to the “First Touch.”

He gasped and looked down to see that the other boy was looking at his arm in wonder. Josh could see the faint print from beneath his hand, and after a couple of seconds, he noticed the other’s wrist. As clear as day, his own handwriting crowded the skin, thin lines scratched out his name in varying shades of brown.

Samuel looked at him and smiled.

* * *

Sam had been one of the lucky ones to be born in a world where he Soulmate already existed. His mom and dad didn’t say much to him about the name for the longest time, and Sam wanted to know who he was supposed to be looking for. He learned to read a year early to decipher the name.

In barely legible handwriting, that even at his young age bothered Sam, was the name Joshua Lyman. He wondered about the color, the J was an amber color and from there it slowly darkened until the letters were the color of wet earth. His mom always commented on how ugly brown was, and she removed any of the color from the house, but Sam thought that it was pretty. Brown was the color of earth, and earth let you live.

He was smart enough to know that, and he was also smart enough to know that having the name of another boy on his wrist was, his dad told him unnatural, Sam struggled to find a different word before he decided it didn't need a word.

When he was six his parents gave him a silver bracelet and told him to wear it. He had wrinkled his nose and tossed it to the side. It had surprised his nanny because he had never acted out like that before, but his parents seemed to be angered by it.

“You’ll wear that, whether you want to or not,” his father had told them.

Sam had replied that no one else in his class was wearing them.

Before his father could go too far his mom stepped in and pulled Sam aside. She had been gentle and made Sam meet her eyes.

“Honey, that’s a boy’s name on your wrist,” she had said.

“Is wearin’ the bracelet gonna make him not be my Soulmate?” Sam countered.

His mother seemed at a loss for words, behind her his father threw up his hands, “let the boy do what he wants, he’ll learn soon enough.”

Sam often wondered about that afternoon. Would his parents still have shipped him off to boarding school when he was ten if he had agreed? He figured they probably would have, just maybe not one across the country. He then wondered if he had chosen the bracelet, would that have made the other boys like him? Sam decided that he didn’t care.

At eleven Sam was across the country from his parents and he had a boy’s name on his wrist and he had just discovered the incredible world of words. His English teacher had picked up on his talent and for his birthday Mr. David gave him a thesaurus and a promise of extra writing lessons. Sam had been thrilled.

His parents not so much, because when he told them about how he stopped going to soccer practice for the lessons they had yelled at him for an hour straight about “doing something boys your age should be doing.” Sam really didn’t get it, soccer was okay, but he always fell and hurt himself. Words, those were something that not everyone had.

After words came sentences, he always knew the basic structure and punctuation, but there was so much he didn’t know. Mr. David had read something that he wrote and when he was finished he looked at Sam with wide eyes.

“You wrote this?” He had asked.

Sam had nodded, “yeah, it isn’t good is it?”

He’d only said that because there was the part that talked about Lincoln’s rousing speech at Gettysburg. Sam knew that he should have spent the extra time looking for something that flowed better than ‘Lincoln spoke about losses, but he also spoke of the principles that our nation was founded upon.’ He should’ve started with ‘though the losses were great, Lincoln reminded the people of the ideals of which the nation was founded.’

“Sam,” Mr. David had said then, “this is the best essay I’ve ever read on this topic at this level.”

“But, there are parts that are still wrong,” Sam argued, “it sounds weird when you say it.”

Mr. David had laughed, “you’ll be a great speechwriter someday.”

“What’s that?”

So that day, Sam learned what it meant to be a speechwriter. He couldn’t think of anything else after, so many people would hear his words that way.

The first time that Sam had sex, he was seventeen and high on his acceptance to Princeton. His roommate had always kept to himself mostly, but something had slipped that night. Instead of the hug ended in a couple of seconds, it lasted longer.

“What are you doing?” Sam had asked, curious.

“It drives me crazy, you know?” Eric had responded, “you wear your name so openly, even though it says, Joshua.”

“I won’t hide it,” Sam said, he had this conversation many times with his parents and he was ready to fight again if need be.

“No, I don’t want you to, I just wish it was my name on your wrist.”

That had broken the last of Sam’s walls, and Eric leaned up to kiss him. After that, it had been a mad dash to see who could get naked first. It had been surprising, he hadn’t thought that Eric was gay.

The word stuck out to him. The hard G was appealing followed by the long vowels. It was much nicer than his father’s familiar call of “those homosexuals” or the local police’s complaints of “fags.”

Sam loved that night, it felt like he was growing into himself like he wouldn’t trip over anything tomorrow. But when tomorrow came, Eric pretended that nothing happened and requested a room change.

When he was seventeen, Sam was bullied for the first time. Bobby was one of Eric’s friends and he was big. So much bigger than Sam himself. When it came down to it, Sam could win a verbal battle at any point, but a physical one could get him sent to the hospital.

Bobby had only shoved him into the wall, hard enough to bruise but nothing else, “keep your gross pansy ass away from Eric, save it for Joshua.”

Sam swallowed, he wanted so much to tell Bobby that Eric had been a willing participant. That last night had been nothing but consensual for both parties. But he didn’t, he couldn’t get back at Eric that way. It wasn’t right to out a person against said person’s wishes. So he had taken the words to heart and didn’t have any more contact with them.

That night he wrapped his hand around his wrist, and for the first time that he could remember in his life, he covered the name. After that, he made sure to wear shirts that covered his wrist and didn’t ride up. He wasn’t going to put the bracelet, that would feel too much like losing but he’d have to be careful about it now.

Caught up in his universe of his parent’s quiet disapproval and boarding schools in which he’s known most of these kids for six years, he forgot the rest of the world was going to be like Bobby.

Sam wondered how his Soulmate was handling this. More than likely it was in a calm and rational manner, like the earth colored soulmark portrayed. Although, Joshua’s handwriting betrayed that, he wrote things like he had something better to do. It was barely legible. It was the one thing he didn’t like about the mark. He knew the way it made his skin itch wasn't a normal feeling, his parents refused to let him see a professional.

Not that he needed the official diagnosis, he had done enough research to know that a person shouldn’t feel like they _need_ lists to survive or that they couldn’t start their day until all of their clothes were organized by color and then within that categorically. Usually, they didn’t get out of place, but sometimes.

It was hard to explain to a teacher why he was late without making him seem like more of a freak. That was just the tip of the iceberg he knew. But Sam didn’t like thinking about that, didn’t like labeling himself because that’s how you got yourself into trouble.

Sam was a brilliant writer, he had won awards from Princeton because of it. A sophomore with his talent was rare and a sophomore with his talent and mind was unheard of. The professors coveted him, and the other students envied him. It made sense that he would join the student newspaper, but he rose through the ranks uncannily fast.

He knew that he was good, everyone told him that. His work wasn’t at a level that he liked.

Everyone thought that he was crazy for wanting to get _better._ That was the problem with some ivy league students, once they were good enough they stopped. Sam couldn’t do that, not yet.

His professors, several of them, thought that his talent was wasted on journalism. They talked him into looking into law schools, which he did. Sam figured that if he kept doing what was expected of him, there wouldn’t be much room to complain when he eventually met his Soulmate.

_“Sure, his Soulmate is a guy,”_ they would say, “ _but look at the quality of work he puts out.”_

Part of him wanted to know if speechwriting was as far below him as his professors were indicating. The only thing that he could do to test that theory was to be a speechwriter. Luckily enough a campaign in New York was looking for someone to fill the position of a speechwriter. Sam applied and sent in his portfolio. Within the week he was making travel and lodging arrangements.

The campaign, according to everyone he talked to, was nothing more than a formality. Apparently, this incumbent wasn’t going to be beaten by a no named Republican. That meant her message was essentially six more years of the same thing. Those first few days he hated it, the previous speechwriter kept dropping in to check on his work despite being retired.

He liked what Sam was doing, but he kept telling that’s now how he would’ve phrased that. Sam would smile, and reply that he liked the way it sounded and that this was mirroring some great speech technique of the past. He’d learned early that no one here was impressed with his encyclopedic knowledge of things.

There were probably signs that he should’ve seen this coming. Sam knew that the likelihood of meeting your soulmate increased 41 percent if you moved beyond a five hundred mile radius from your home city. It’s why 76 percent of all soulmate meetings occur within the first few years of college. He hadn’t met his yet, he was more than 500miles away from home, and he’d been in college for two years. It made sense.

However, it still took him a laughably long time to get past the shock of feeling the sear of a First Touch. The man he stumbled into was holding his forearm, just below his elbow.

82 percent of all First Touches occur on the hand, from handshakes, Sam assumed. There was seven percent of the population that had their First Touch end up on their face and three percent of First Touches occur on breasts, butts, and penises. That left the remaining eight percent to be divided between the remaining body parts.

He was sure at some point he had read something about there being some correlation between First Touch locations and the role that the person would play in their Soulmate’s life. Sam couldn’t remember any of that now because he had looked into Joshua's face.

All he could do was smile because while Joshua was nothing like he had dreamed of, he was everything that Sam wanted, he could tell.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sure there was going to be plot? But this was super nice the way this was, so it's getting posted. Leave your thoughts below!


End file.
